


Partials

by Keeper_ofaRestlessHeart



Series: Finding Volpina-verse [3]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-10-29 19:56:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keeper_ofaRestlessHeart/pseuds/Keeper_ofaRestlessHeart
Summary: A collection of shorter bits that accompany the main story of "Finding Volpina."1. Chloé's childhood up until a certain point.





	Partials

**Author's Note:**

> This one's dedicated to the lovely reader Thamli.

A/N: There are depictions of underage drinking and reckless behavior. The author does not endorse this behavior.

 

Chloé starts _petite section_ in bright yellow rain boots. Her curls are tied in pigtails with blue ribbons that matched her dress. Mother insisted she wore lots of blue because of her coloring. Her shoes would have been blue Mary Janes if it weren’t for the rain that day. As they get out of the car, she splashes through a puddle as Mother warns her not to ruin her dress. Chloé rushes forward, ignoring her, because she can’t wait to meet all the other kids. She’s arrived at the school gates in the middle of the park, and surveys the place for anyone who could be a friend.

There are three boys chattering away in a corner. One of them has dark skin, one a lighter brown, and the chubby one is Asian. Standing nearby is a girl wearing a white jumper with startling red hair. She’s looking at the ground like she doesn’t want to talk to anyone.  
Chloé watches another child arrive. It’s a girl. Her black hair is in smart Dutch braids. _She’s really pretty,_ is the first thing Chloé thinks. She has freckles across her nose and bright blue eyes. The girl’s mother (as she assumes the woman who dropped her off is) looks Chinese. This girl, who is also wearing blue ribbons, looks like she could be Chloé’s friend.

Chloé is about to approach, to introduce herself with a smile like Father taught her to, when one of the boys calls out.

“Marinette!” It’s the boy with golden brown skin. His French is slightly accented.

The girl’s face lights up. “Hi, Nino,” she says, and bounds over.

Chloé isn’t sure what to do. There are too many people. Usually when she is around so many people they are all adults who pet her hair and give her candy before the nanny or one of the maids takes her away. If she isn’t taken away, Chloé spends much of the time in her father’s arms. She’s glad when one of the kindergarten aides calls the class to attention, distracting her from her uncertainty.

Once in the classroom, Chloé ends up sitting next to the ginger girl who blinks at her like a deer in headlights.  
“Hi, I’m Chloé Bourgeois.” She smiles like Daddy and Mother always do in front of guests. “Your hair is so pretty. Can I touch it?”

The girl nods and, for a few seconds, Chloé holds soft, fire in her hands. Her hair glows in a way that would always stand out in a room, though the girl looks like she wants to shrink from any attention.

“What’s your name?”

“Sa-Sabrina.” Sabrina looks up at her. “Your hair is pretty too.”

 By recess, Chloé has tied the ribbon that kept falling out of her own hair around Sabrina’s wrist and declares they are best friends. Sabrina is so flustered by everything, but listens very well to Chloé’s instructions during playtime. The two of them arrange blocks into a castle and declare each other the princesses of their imaginary principality. The block set Chloé has at home is better, but during this interaction, Chloé learns that if she speaks loud enough and runs fast enough, she can get the other kids to listen to her just as well as Sabrina does.

  
When the teacher asks someone to be class president, Chloé is the first to raise her hand. “class president” sounds like what her father does, and Chloé likes it when he praises her. When she tells him about volunteering, he laughs.

“You’ll be the cutest president ever,” Daddy says.  
“Come on pet.” Mother rushes to take Chloé out of the room, because Daddy’s about to go to Important Business, which means she can’t disturb him anymore.  “You have to get ready for ballet lessons,” Mother adds.  


On one of the afternoons Sabrina is playing at her house, Chloé is absorbed in a puzzle. She wants to finish piecing together Tinkerbell’s hair, so she asks on a whim, “Can you do the worksheet for me? I mean, you already did it, right? You just have to copy it over.” It’s a math worksheet Chloé isn’t looking forward to.

Sabrina agrees, happy to help the person who invited her over. The sooner they finish their work, the sooner they can play English Tea with real porcelain and an enviable platter of finger sandwiches prepared by the cook. Sabrina explains that when she plays at home, it’s with crackers and empty plastic cups (because her mom is afraid of the spill). “Things are so much nicer at your house, Chloé.”

They fall into the habit of Chloé buying Sabrina nice things and Sabrina doing Chloé’s homework. The teachers never seem to notice, especially because Chloé always scores well on the tests.

  
Chloé first meets Adrien when they are both seven. He looks picture-perfect, like something out of a dream. Adrien’s parents are there too—guests of her parents—but Chloé hardly notices because she’s too busy staring at Adrien. The staff usher them to the library to eat their dinner because the adults have the dining room for the evening. It’s more fun pretending she’s a wizard or a unicorn in the library anyway.

  
Adrien’s shy. It reminds her of how Sabrina was when they first met. After dinner, the maid lets them stay in the library to entertain themselves. Adrien moves to the desk and stares at the globe on it intently, like he’s trying to commit the lands and seas to memory. Chloé bounds over and finds France. She points, her index finger feeling the bumps that are the Alps. “We’re here. I learned it at school. Which school do you go to?”  
“I have tutors at home instead,” he replies. Adrien’s voice is softer than she expected it to be.

“I want to stay home and play all day!” Chloé declares, enviously.  
“It’s not quite like that.”  
Chloé gives the globe on the desk a spin. “How many countries have you been to?”  
“I would have to count to know for sure.” As Adrien counts on his fingers Chloé continues speaking. “I’ve been to, let’s see, Greece and Italy and Spain and England and Amsterdam. Brussels and Switzerland and Montreal and New York and San Francisco. How many countries is that? Oh, and Mother is taking me to Johannesburg and Cape Town in the winter so that’s another one.  
“Five, I think,” Adrien answers after some consideration. “Italy, Germany, England, the Netherlands, and Brussels.”  
His fingers hovers over the globe, but he doesn’t touch it. Chloé grabs his hands. They’re ice, but he acts like he’s the one whose been hit with cold at the contact. “C’mon, let’s play travel!”  
His fingers fold into her hands. Adrien warms up to her quickly. Even quicker than Sabrina did. He lets her drag him to the armchairs where a large map covers the entire wall. They start planning their road trip across the world. They plan on taking a cardboard box that can fly and teleport, using a book as the steering wheel.

They meet a couple more times that way, through their parents’ parties, until the play dates become a regular, scheduled thing. (“Adrien can’t stop talking about Chloé!” His mother had apparently gushed to Chloé’s mother.) They solve puzzles, trade pieces of chocolate, and learn to ride bikes together. (The bike riding occurs in the hallway of her expansive townhouse because Adrien’s father is much stricter about things, and she doesn’t like going there anyway.)

 

Adrien is the sweetest, most beautiful boy she’s ever met. He’s also one of the loneliest people she knows.

 

When she is eight years old and Sabrina asks about her weekend, Chloé pauses. She doesn’t mention Adrien because it feels like sharing a big secret. Although she tells Sabrina just about everything, she would rather keep Adrien to herself. She swears she’s going to marry him one day.

 

They take tennis lessons together, until Adrien drops it for fencing when he is ten. Chloé continues it for another few months, but it is no fun without him, and her mother makes an off-comment about the callouses on her hands when they go for a manicure. The paint and gems on her nails got ruined when she scraped clay diving for the ball. She hadn’t thought much of it until Mother’s comment. Chloé stops taking lessons, although she hits the wall occasionally by herself.  
  
In those early years, she feels like she had the world in her hands. She’s class president over and over again. Sabrina does her homework. Adrien sees her once in a while. Mother agrees to let her get a straight perm so that her hair can be shiny and look just like the celebrities in the magazines. Then, her parents divorce.

It isn’t terrible. It could be much worse. Daddy pays a lot more attention to her now. With Mother not around as much Chloé can go where she pleases and wear what she wants. A lot more yellow ends up in her closet.

 

It’s a few months after Adrien’s mother has died when Adrien calls her to asks about the logistics of enrolling in public school. Her father had informed her about Mrs. Agreste’s passing, not Adrien himself, which she brushes off. She can’t be angry at Adrien for it. Chloé finds she can’t ever be angry at Adrien for anything.

Adrien tells her he wants to enroll in her school. He’s whispering. Chloé feels honored to be privy to such a secret. She reassures him that she could probably get her parents to back him up if his father won’t.

“Don’t you worry Adrikins, scheming is my new favorite hobby.”

She can’t stop smiling after that phone call. Chloé thinks everything is perfect. She’s so excited about Adrien coming to school that she could jump out of her skin. She wants to make things perfect for Adrien, everyone else be damned. She’s pretty and rich and popular, and she is going to get everything she wants. It’s _troisième_ and she’s going to rule as she always has.

 

When the school year actually starts, a crack forms in her perfect world in the shape of one Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

Since _école maternelle,_ Marinette’s always been friendly overall. Yet, the bakers’ daughter never fit concretely into a single group or had a best friend. Chloé watches Marinette through the years, always hanging out with Nino or Alix or Kim. Marinette is utterly dismissible. She’s nice and easy to push around, but not as easy as Sabrina is. Then, in _troisième_ Marinette starts to talk back, and Chloé can feel the control slipping from her grasp. It’s not just Marinette—it’s everything happening around her when she is fifteen.

It’s Adrien acting distant. Adrien becomes fast friends with Marinette, Alya, and Nino, and where does that leave Chloé? Even though they are in school together now, and see each other every day, he feels farther away than ever. It’s the rampant akuma attacks, and the fact that she’s not class president anymore. When she informs Daddy of the change in leadership, he responds with indifference, telling her it was okay, like it hadn’t been very important in the first place. Because of Marinette, for some brief, sickening hours, she even has to entertain the idea of Sabrina not being her friend anymore.

There is that new girl, Lila, who is assertive, and honestly, intimidating. Chloé is never more grateful for what a strong person Marinette is turning into than when Marinette puts Lila in her place. Marinette’s got a spunkiness that seems so natural it throws Chloé off-balance. Chloé doesn’t see Marinette’s demeanor in-action with regards to Lila for too long because the Italian girl transfers away soon enough. (The woe of having diplomat parents who travel the world.)  
Chloé wants to keep up the glitter and the glam, but the world around her shifts. She tries very hard to ignore the rocks beneath her feet, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re there. She’s grateful for the start of _lycée_ —for the chance to reset.

 

Even if they are perfectly comfortable with who they were in _collège,_ and had a nice friend group and didn’t need some cliché “high school debut,” _lycée_ is a chance to start over. Or so Chloé believes. On the first day of the new school year, Chloé scopes out the unfamiliar faces like a tiger out for its prey. She wants to rule the school, and she needs to find friends just like her, not those people she went to _école_ _primaire_ and _collège_ with. They were okay, (if lame, dorky, or boring), but they aren’t her people.

Ava approaches her first, and the dynamic. It’s a dynamic Chloé doesn’t oppose if she can help it.  
“You’re Chloé Bourgeois, the Mayor’s daughter, aren’t you? I recognized you from the news.”  
“Why, of course you did,” Chloé says. “I’m hard to forget.”  
The hard glint in Ava’s eyes is a challenge and a dismissal at the same time. Chloé doesn’t know quite what to do with it. “Your dad is Mayor. He met with my dad a couple of times. He’s a senator,” Ava continues. “I was going to invite you to lunch with Geraldine, but it’s totally up to you if you want to join or not.” The way Ava carries herself sucks Chloé in. Ava’s all sharp edges on jagged crystal and Chloé wants to be her friend.  
“Funny,” Chloé recovers. “I was going to invite _you_ to eat lunch with me and my friend Sabrina. She’s lovely to have around.”  
“I’ll see you then.”  
“Don’t forget my lunch appointment, Sabrina,” Chloé says the next time they meet. Sabrina’s recording a to-do list for Chloé when Ava catches them.

“Hello Sabrina, I’m Ava,” she says in an approving voice. “This is Gerdaline. I’m so glad you could join us for lunch.”  
A fifth and sixth girl, Zara and Sophie, join their group shortly after. People of certain personality types do tend to gravitate towards each other, and so, for once, Chloé has a group that perfectly matches her. She revels in the company.  
They gossip over magazines and their schoolmates. They compare manicures, shopping sprees, and how much their parents or guardians are willing to indulge them to disguise or avoid confronting their own mistakes. Zara’s parents let her throw a yacht party for her sixteenth birthday, with an unlimited tab and freely flowing booze (despite all of them being underage), but don’t bother making an appearance. Zara’s mother calls though, so at least there is that.

 

Chloé doesn’t mention her infatuation with the city’s superheroes to them. When news breaks out she hides her excitement at the speculation of there being a third masked hero. It’s something they would laugh at her for, and she knows it. Her strange little obsession.

 

The six of them talk about vacation plans, prospective classes, and their ambitions versus their parents’ expectations. Sophie plays tennis competitively, which makes Chloé wonder how good she would be by now if she had continued it. They giggle over anything that makes them laugh, and they talk about boys a lot. Adrien is on the top of their approval list, in terms of looks and pedigree. None of them have any luck with him, as he keeps to the company of her _collège_ classmates, whom the girls have a mutual distaste for. She feels a surge of power at mentioning she and Adrien are childhood friends. She paints a picture of Adrien being off-limits. Ava sulks when Chloé talks about it, but she’s more curious than anything else.

The six of them go to concerts together. They are aware not everyone may like them, but they don’t care. They’re cool, they’re having fun, and these are supposed to be the best years of their lives, right? Chloé’s half-serious hedonism was the general attitude of the group. Sometimes Sabrina wasn’t very into it, but she was friendly with all the other girls, and went along with most of their antics.

 

Their group doesn’t see each other much over the summer because they vacation in different spots, but everyone comes back with exploits to share. Chloé returns with a tan and sun-streaked, nearly white hair. She read through an academic book on the history of Poland that she’s too embarrassed to mention because it might get her labeled as a “nerd.” It was a summer spent at the beach doing nothing. She invited Sabrina along for most of it. Sabrina mostly studied or played games on her phone in the shade because she was so fair all she did in the sun was burn.  
The weekend before school is to start, the six of them go to Zara’s, who always throws the wildest parties, for a bash by the pool of a country house. Ava arrives in wedges and Ray-Bans, rants about the boy she was chasing over the summer, who dropped her like a hot potato.

“I’ll get a boyfriend this year, I swear,” she says.  
Sophie, who’s had a boyfriend for years and is wholly uninterested in romantic drama, is non-committal on the matter. The other girls make supportive noises. Ava, offhandedly, raises an eyebrow at Chloé. “Maybe I’ll go after your boy Adrien, since you’ve made no progress with him.” Ava’s smile is all teeth. “He certainly is pretty enough.”  
_He’s prettier than you inside and out,_ Chloé thinks immediately. She bites back the insult instead, and scoffs. “There’ll be progress. He’s being a dumb boy is all. He’ll realize it soon enough. Fate will see to everything working out.”

 

It all comes crashing down when the school catches sight of Marinette and Adrien on the first day. They’re together, and not just the “together” they’ve been for the past few months. (It isn’t as if Chloé didn’t notice the two gradually and steadily get closer as friends. She simply elected to ignore it.) They’re together-together. Most-definitely dating-together, and the Marinette-shaped crack that warped her world the first time has turned into a fault line.  
News of the school’s “hottest new couple” stings her heart. It’s a dull ache that makes her body numb. She’d rather feel nothing at all. Worse is the hard malice in Ava’s eyes when Chloé joins the group for lunch. Chloé has seen it many times. Now on the receiving end, Chloé remembers exactly what these girls are capable of. Sabrina’s already at the table, in deep conversation with Zara, and won’t look Chloé in the eye.  
“So much for destiny,” Geraldine scoffs. “I can’t believe you were so deluded. Doesn’t seem like he cares about you at all. It got ridiculous, listening to you talk.”  
“They just showed up to school together. No one’s confirmed they are dating.” Chloé knows the words are total BS as she says them. Boyfriend-and-girlfriend or officially dating or whatever they are, it’s never something they need to say out loud. Even if they aren’t dating, even if they’re just “them,” no one could get between it.  
Chloé goes home for lunch instead of dealing with the clique. She picks at her food and feels her stomach lurch when she thinks about Marinette and the power she seems to holds over all their old classmates, and Adrien, effortlessly.  
_Actually, I haven’t talked to Adrien in months,_ Chloé realizes. _But that’s normal for us._ They aren’t the type of friends who talk every day. When they do have a chance for a full-fledged conversation, which was usually at one society event or another, they get along well. Yet Adrien hasn’t mentioned anything about getting a girlfriend. Then again, when has Adrien confided to her about anything? When his mom died, when he started modeling, she found out about all of it after-the-fact. She wonders if they’re really friends at this point, and composes some long-winded speculative texts to Sabrina on the topic. She deletes the texts before she can send them.  
The next morning, by the school gates, she can feel the anticipation in the air like frigid cold. It sinks into her bones and draws out her breath. “What is the problem?” Chloé snaps as she looks around the literal circle the girls are standing in.  
“You are,” Ava says lightly. “After everything that happened yesterday, I can’t believe you still think you’re all that.”  
Chloé laughs, although it comes out bitter. “What’s the big deal?”  
She spits out the words. She knows it’s the truth, but it still hurts. _I must pretend not to care,_ she thinks. “I mean, he makes great arm candy, but...”  
“You’re out, Bourgeois,” Ava says.

Chloé knows exactly what those words mean. She wants to claim she knew exactly what she was getting herself into when she joined their very exclusive clique. The group is built on fun and appearances. How did she look now, as the girl who bragged so frequently about her relationship with a boy she barely talked to anymore? _I must pretend not to care_. “Fine, whatever. C’mon Sabrina.”  
When Sabrina doesn’t budge from the group, Chloé wills herself not to trip. She keeps her steps steady, her shoulders forward, her chin up. _You’re out, Bourgeois._ The words sound like a curse. _  
_ The rest of the school day passes in a daze. It’s not unusual for Chloé to barely pay attention or takes notes. It is unusual for her not to be gossiping or plotting. But, right now, she’s found the thing that hurts more than Adrien not being “hers” in the way she’s thought since they first met. It’s Sabrina’s silence.

  
Another slew of texts is written but never sent. Everyone else laughs and jokes and acts like nothing’s the matter when Chloé wants to scream to the high heavens to let the world know of her misery. Except she’s noticed in the past year that her temper tantrums have a waning effect. They work well enough on Daddy, but everyone else had grown immune. She attributes the shift to a certain Ms. Dupain-Cheng, and to the amount of BS everyone was willing to put up with decreasing as they aged from 14 to 16.  
It’s alarming how quickly she turns invisible once she dissociates from the group. Or, had everyone formed groups to combat the anonymity? She buys herself a nice pair of diamond and gold earnings on the way home. They’re exactly the kind Sabrina would like. Chloé texts her a picture, with an offer to lend them, but gets no response. Her new earrings feel heavy now, and all that glitters can’t distract from the loneliness.

She wears her new earrings to school for the next two days. Usually, they’re what Zara would compliment and Ava would comment on first thing, but the girls don’t say anything. She is met with dead silence when she greets them, and she eats her lunch at home.

It’s been three days, and their stares and whispers suffocate her while the rest of the school acts like nothing’s wrong—because to them, nothing is. Without Chloé, the school ecosystem continues to function.  The _lycée_ is abuzz with the news of the new “it” couple. Girls and boys are devastated on both sides. Then, this-and-that happens with some (former) couples in the upper grades. Within a week there is a new Hottest RumorTM and #Adrienette is officially Old News.

  
Chloé wakes up a bit late one morning and informs her driver that she isn’t feeling well instead of scrambling to get ready in half an hour. One day bleeds into the next, and soon it’s the weekend. She’s got no plans because no one’s talked to her. She even goes and does the homework and make-up assignments her teachers e-mail to her. The situation is truly dire because she hasn’t done her assignments properly, without taking shortcuts, in years.  
_No one’s bothered because no one cares._ Those were Zara’s words once, when she was in particularly bad spirits about her parents always being too busy. Zara’s parents are busy in the way that Adrien’s father is. Adrien seems to handle the casual indifference okay, but Zara’s solution is usually a malt liquor or warm chardonnay.  Zara can down tequila shots like no one else Chloé knows, and her tenacity for self-destructive behavior is fascinating to watch. _Alcohol is my best friend,_ Zara insisted. _It makes me forget.  
_ The hotel staff has rules about Chloé ordering more than one glass of wine. She can order specifically wine, and only for supper. However, she’s got a dress, a pair earnings and beautiful glittery stilettoes. Daddy has a membership to a longue where the drinks flow freely. Ava and Geraldine once told a story of how they snuck into the same place by saying they were meeting their parents, who were also members, there. Chloé’s been to the longue twice, both times with Daddy.

She finds the membership card and calls the car after dressing in the new party ensemble and throwing on a white blazer.  
The membership card is minimalist, black, with the letters VL embossed in the center. The other side looks blank. There must be all kinds of chips and plates and magnet readers inside because when the bouncer scans her card, she’s cleared. She’s brought to the manager, who recognizes her. Before he can comment on her age she gushes in a sickly-sweet voice: “I’m meeting my father here soon. I thought it would all be handled!”  
The manager is slightly taken aback, but let’s Choé through. She heads straight for the bar and orders a glass of champagne and a tequila shot because she’s feeling jumpy and wants to take the edge off. Both burn down her throat. _I need more,_ she thinks.  
She’s on her second (or is it third or fourth?) shot and numb enough that thoughts of loneliness have all but left her mind when the manager approaches her.  
“Ms. Bourgeois, I contacted your father’s assistant, who reports back with orders from your father to return home,” he says.  
“Oh, but I like it here,” Chloé whines. She would stomp her foot if it wasn’t dangling from the stool, and currently didn’t feel like jelly to her brain.  
“The lounge has a policy of using force to remove members if necessary,” the manager states firmly. “It’s in the terms and conditions card members agree to when they join. Their adjoining guests are liable to the same conditions.”

Chloé slams down the drink in front of her, as much as left-over champagne can be slammed down. The world spins as she struggles to get up.  
She truly doesn’t want to leave, though. Isn’t she running away from something? The world outside seems too big. She’s not ready. She must have shouted that, and the rest of the night is a blur.

She wakes up in her own room, with a huge headache. There is aspirin on her bedside table along with the rest of her breakfast. (It would be a lunch, per the clock.) Chloé has no idea what happened and no one to ask because, oh yeah, she’s not on speaking terms with her friends anymore.  
She’s going through random posts on social media when she sees a SnapChat of Ava with Geraldine and Sophie having fun shopping together. As she hits the back button she hears a knock and her father calling her from the other side of the door.

“I’m busy right now, Daddy!”  
“I wanted to make sure that everything was okay,” Mayor Bourgeois says. “What were you doing at the longue yesterday, young lady?”  
“It was for a change of pace, Daddy. Please leave me alone.”  
They argue for a bit, which makes her want to unlock her door even less.  Her father is in a rush, with a plane to catch and a meeting to get to. After twenty minutes of back-and forth, Daddy leaves. Chloé gets the peace she wanted, which is loneliness and silence. It’s starting to feel more like a burden than a relief. She sleeps off her hangover and does more shopping before taking a bath and retiring to bed.

  
She gets a text from Adrien for the first time in months. More surprising, he initiated contact, which almost never happens. She wants to respond instantaneously and tell him about the awful week she’s had, but her head is killing her, and it’s before she’s even begun to think of a coherent response. It doesn’t help that each time she checks out his profile, she sees images of him laughing with Marinette, getting along with her _collège_ classmates better than she ever had, and other reminders that he isn’t hers anymore. His world has widened and he’s gotten farther away from her.

 Hours later, Adrien is banging on her door. It’s the kind of attention she’s wanted from him since forever. She wants to let him in, but she’s in her pajamas with no makeup on, and her hair is getting frizzy. Adrien shouldn’t see anything but her best face, so she refuses him. The obvious avoidance drags on for days. She doesn’t pick up when he calls because hearing his voice would make things worse. She can’t begin to respond to his texts.

Then, the contact stops. It’s as if he’s stopped trying. Chloé isn’t sure which is worse.

 

The girls are eager to talk to her on Monday. It’s the first sign that something is deeply wrong.

“You look wonderful in the papers,” Ava taunts.  
“I always look wonderful,” Chloé scoffs. “What papers? I’ve been photographed _so_ many times.”  
“The latest news, duh.” Ava presses the printout into Chloé’s hands. Chloé nearly drops the bag she’s carrying as she reads it.  
She should have expected there to be cameras, given the place she went. She doesn’t remember leaving, though. The rag article made the place out to be some trashy club when it was the type of lounge those paparazzi would pull their teeth out to get into.

When Chloé tries to clear the air, the girls don’t believe her. Sabrina shies away, with Geraldine putting her arm protectively around Chloé’s best friend’s shoulders.  
Chloé’s a contender for the new hottest rumor. She liked it better last week, when it seemed like nothing in the world had changed. For once in her life, she doesn’t want people noticing her. She wants to turn invisible, close her eyes and go somewhere far away. Anywhere but the school hallway where she’s standing.

The headache is coming back. What will her father think? He must already know. That’s why he argued with her to be let in. Daddy must not have had the heart to tell her about the tabloid article directly. She brushes off Adrien when he tries to approach her that day, because she’s not sure she can keep it together in front of him. He’s easy enough to avoid in school. His actions yesterday, the attempts at contact, make a lot more sense now. Adrien must pity her, and what she hates from people more than scorn is pity.

The ridicule on Monday pushes her to text Sabrina multiple times, but there is never a response. Two weeks ago, Sabrina got back to her in seconds. Chloé suppresses the overwhelming urge to cry for the rest of the day. During the awkward dinner with her father, she offers cryptic answers and empty reassurances. To distract him, she asks about what city events he’s organizing for Christmas.  
On Tuesday morning, after she’s got her makeup perfect and is scrutinizing her hair, the waterworks start suddenly and won’t stop. She doesn’t go to school that day, or the next. _I can’t, I just can’t._ She tells the entire staff she’s sick and orders room service. She doesn’t leave her room. She musters the energy to go out by herself on Friday afternoon. She walks in a pair of nice stiletto sandals rather than take the car. She gathered just enough energy to leave her room fueled by one goal. _I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to think at all._

Chloé doesn’t go back to the longue. She doubts she could get in so soon unaccompanied. However, it’s not difficult to find another place willing to serve her alcohol. Mommy and Daddy’s plastic go a long way. They always have. It’s another ritzy longue frequented by soccer players and models and the children of business mongrels. Not caring about your age so long as you could pay the cover fee was the unspoken rule.

This time, she has tappas first. Once the shots start, she feels like she’s floating, and then she’s gone.  
The next thing she remembers is waking up in her limo. The driver gazes at her briefly before turning his eyes back onto the road. The shades are pulled down. Her pounding head is thankful for the darkness. “What time is it? What day is it?”  
“It’s been seven hours since you left the hotel, Miss.”  
“Three of which you spent checked into a hospital.” It’s another voice coming from inside the limo. Chloé recognizes one of the maids from the hotel, although she doesn’t know if she would remember her name even if she didn’t just come back from the dead. She’s not in her maid’s uniform, but sleek flared jeans, and a light sweater. The red of her bindi is hard to discern in the poor light.  
“How did you find me?”  
“After recent events your father ordered me to reassign my work and tail you, should you leave the hotel,” she explains coolly. “I doubt you remember the hospital. With your father’s influence, we managed to get you in and out discreetly.”  
“My father sent people to spy on me,” Chloé interprets.  
“He’s worried,” the maid says. “But he won’t press.”  
The driver speaks. “I’d say it’s a good thing he did. Nadera had to talk her way into the club to go after you, which was a sight to watch. She convinced the bouncer to inform some workers to keep an eye on you. Then she got the mayor on the phone to demand she be let in.”  
“Th-thanks,” Chloé mumbles.  
“According to the kind waiter you only knocked a few things over,” Nadera says. “No harm was done to you or any other animate objects.”  
Chloé gulps. “What else happened?!”  
“You’ll have to ask the staff there. I only got in after you’d passed out. Two of the staff had to haul you to the car while I worked on damage control.”  
_Damage control._ It’s Friday night at the center of Paris, and the mayor’s daughter was hauled unconscious out of a nightclub. The press would have a field day. She can just imagine the headlines. Chloé is glad, again, for the darkness to shield her from prying eyes.  
“I’m going back to sleep,” Chloé says. “Wake me up when it’s blown over.”  
Fifteen minutes later, the news has not blown over (the tabloids haven’t even gotten started), but Chloé is brought back to the hotel through a side entrance and shown to her room. She checks her phone and sees the battery has died. Once it’s plugged in she finds out she’s got mixed calls from a blocked number (probably Adrien) and some texts from Geraldine. The texts are all links to different versions of any mention of her “wild night” in the press. The commentary in between is scathing. It’s worse than anything the tabloids could do, because of where it’s coming from. It makes her want to puke at the same time it seems to light her blood on fire. Technically, Chloé created the fodder for herself. Why does she never think anything through?  
Chloé wants a new phone number. A blank slate. To build her contacts list from scratch again. She can talk to her father and ask him to buy her a new SIM, and she’s been eyeing the new iPhone anyway. (She didn’t switch over to the new model the last time because she liked her old phone case. She had decoupagéd it, but she doesn’t care about the case anymore. Oh, right. She had decoupagéd it with Sabrina.)  
She makes a conference call with her father after checking that she looks presentable to ask for a new phone.  
“Young lady, what were you thinking? You could have been seriously hurt!” Daddy says before Chloé can get a word in. “And why haven’t you gone to school in the past few days?”  
“Daddy, I can’t believe you had the staff spy on me,” Chloé responds reflexively. Her father has never yelled at her for anything at all. Two can play at that game.  
“Your behavior is unacceptable. It has to stop,” Mayor Bourgeois continues, unmoved. “Do I have to get your mother involved in this?”  
“No, I’m fine, but I can’t believe you,” Chloé continues. “Don’t you trust me?”  
Mayor Bourgeois’ non-response is all the answer they need. Granted, she hasn’t given him much reason to, but it still stings. He can say “of course I trust you” all he wants, but his actions speak otherwise.

“I’ll forgive you if you let me use the emergency card to get a new phone,” Chloé interjects. “I need it. I need a new number. I’ll text it to you immediately. Please?”  
“Sweetie, what is going on?”  
Chloé bristles and physically backs away from the propped-up tablet screen. “You won’t understand, Daddy.” Chloé sighs. “Some people at school and drama, and can I please just get the phone?”  
It must have been something on her face, or the way her lip trembled, because her father relents. “Fine, you can use the card,” Daddy says. “You have it anyway.”  
He doesn’t ask further questions. Thank God he doesn’t press. “I have to get ready for another meeting. Take care, sweetie.”  
“Thank you so much, Daddy!” Chloé blows him a kiss. She’s all smiles but he can barely crack out a grin. There is resignation on his face. She freezes as the video call ends. Daddy’s never looked at her that way before. Daddy’s never looked like he’s disappointed in her.

 

The case on her new iPhone is a gold, see-through plastic. The inside is decorated with silver and white stars. The little street stall next to a Korean lunch box place where she buys the case also sells charms too. On a whim, she buys three because her case has a sturdy little bit on the side for phone charms. She buys a Ladybug, and a Chat Noir, and a Celeste charm. When the new hero appeared, there was merchandise for him within a week. The charms are flat pieces of plastic with the heroes shown full-body, in chibi form. The ladybug charm is her favorite. She thinks that Ladybug will always be her favorite.  
She transfers the numbers she copied onto stationery to her new phone. Daddy, Mother, her mother’s 2 older brothers and the cousins on that side, her grandmother, and her grandfather go into the phone right after the other. She doesn’t log into any social media accounts because it would link her up to all her old contacts. She adds Adrien’s number too, after some deliberation. The simplest way to let everyone know of her new number is through text, which she sends her father. If she does the same with all her other contacts at this time, she might get comments on her latest exploits, if they are keeping up, and she doesn’t want to risk it. She hardly talks to any of her extended family members anyway. She’ll hold off messaging them until its old news. It should be old news soon, right?  
She has all her photos on the Cloud, so the only thing missing are the text messages and call history. The blank space on her phone is a relief, but also a little terrifying. What if it never got filled up and all she is left with is reminders of her mistakes in the silence?  
She blasts EDM music on the way home to combat the jitters from thinking too much.  
Chloé remembers a line in the Great Gatsby, which she read in translation for last year’s literature unit about the 1920s. Daisy says it’s best for her daughter to be a beautiful fool. Chloé understands. She would rather be a fool now.  
She remembers relaxing by herself for hours at the spa, and playing at home with her stuffed animals. She spent loads of time by herself, even as she was surrounded by staff and nannies and her parents’ aids, but she’s never felt so alone before. Loneliness is the monster that leaves paper cuts on her heart and eats the words in her throat. She misses the Adrien she knew when they were seven and the Sabrina she knew in primary school. Before things got complicated. Before Mother left.  
Chloé hates how her best memories have grown thorns. They prick and prod, reminding her of how much her life freaking sucks now. She hates that the person she’s angriest at is herself. She’s become the type of person she despises most: someone pitiful.  
Her phone, her old phone, buzzes, and it’s the blocked number. She would know it’s Adrien without the notice, due to the content. It’s that thing that happens, sometimes, when you can read a text in the sender’s voice. Chloé does it now, automatically. The text reads in his always well-meaning voice, mentions Marinette, and takes pity on her.  
Yup, only Adrien could send that kind of text.

It’s then that the waterworks start. She isn’t sure if they are angry or sad tears anymore. It’s the thought of her nemesis entering her room, and having to go along with it because of Adrien’s tactics, that’s the breaking point. She locks herself in the outside bathroom to try to calm herself down, and she thinks she’s almost good when she hears a knock on the door to her suite.

Marinette’s stupid voice is on the other side. Her stupid voice with her and her stupid concern. As Marinette speaks Chloé has to amend her thoughts. “Concern” couldn’t encompass everything in her tone, in her being there at all.

  
Heh, well, the girl pulls no punches. Chloé respects that trait.

The voice gets closer. It’s on the other side of her bathroom door now.

There was something about Marinette Dupain-Cheng that always made Chloé want to show her up. They both knew it. The feeling was mutual, and the sly girl was taking full advantage of it.

Chloé opens the door.


End file.
